Van Dyck, Rubens, Hillewerve en de Amazons

Van Dyck, Rubens, Hillewerve and the Amazons

Bert Schepers

Every now and then I treat myself to a couple of days in Paris to enjoy the city, indulge in art and broaden my horizons. Last February, I was lucky enough to catch three blockbuster exhibitions that had just opened at the Louvre, ahead of the flood, and topped this off with a visit to the Hôtel Turgot, home to the Fondation Custodia, to work my way through two more shows: first ‘Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt’ and then ‘Reading Traces: Three Centuries of Drawing in Germany’. The latter brought together highlights of the drawings collection of the German art historian Dr Hinrich Sieveking. At the very end of the show – I almost walked past it – there was a small selection of works from other schools, including a pen-and-ink

drawing by Anthony van Dyck, which I didn’t recall ever having seen before (fig. 1). The label read: ‘A Horseman Tumbling off his Rearing Horse’. Trimmed along the edges, it appears to be only a fragment of a larger composition. How much of it is missing is hard to tell. The drawing shows no traces of inscriptions or collector’s marks. Turning to the catalogue, prepared for an earlier showing in Hamburg, I quickly learned that this work was a recent discovery, and that Stijn Alsteens, the expert on Van Dyck drawings (among other things), had written the catalogue entry for it.1 On the verso, not on view, were several more figure studies for an equestrian battle with a near-naked foot soldier in front, fleeing with his back turned to the viewer (fig. 2). Nothing

is known of the sheet’s provenance other than that it had been owned by the Hamburg collector Dr Karl Sieveking (1787–1847) and has remained in his family’s possession up to the present owner. Tellingly, in a handwritten catalogue of the collection of about 1830, the drawing was attributed to Rubens.

Alsteens convincingly argued that it is without doubt an early Van Dyck drawing, dating from the time the gifted young artist was attached to the studio of Rubens, who called him his best student (‘meglior mio discepolo’) in a much-quoted letter of 1618: Van Dyck was by then already assisting Rubens in the realization of several major commissions. The subject and purpose of these ‘crabbelinghen’ – as such rapid pen

sketches were called in seventeenth-century Antwerp – remains unclear, as there is no corresponding work in Van Dyck’s known oeuvre. In terms of style and execution, Alsteens compares this exciting new addition to the corpus of Van Dyck drawings of horses and horsemen, to an animated design for a martyrdom of St Catherine (École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris) and a sheet of studies of a horse’s head and an armed rider (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), both dating from c. 1618–21. He also points out the proximity to some of Rubens’s dazzling (battle) paintings of the 1610s: The Conversion of Saul (The Courtauld Gallery), The Defeat of Sennacherib and The Battle of the Amazons (both Alte Pinakothek).

Figs.1–2 Anthony van Dyck, Figure studies for an equestrian battle, c.1618–21. Pen and brown ink, framing lines (recto) in pen and black ink, 100×87mm. Private collection. Reproduced (actual size) with kind permission of the owner.

Figs.1–2 Anthony van Dyck, Figure studies for an equestrian battle, c.1618–21. Pen and brown ink, framing lines (recto) in pen and black ink, 100×87mm. Private collection. Reproduced (actual size) with kind permission of the owner.

Fig.3 Peter Paul Rubens, The Battle of the Amazons, c.1600–03. Pen and brown ink over traces of graphite or black chalk, 251×428mm. The British Museum, London

Fig.4 Attributed to Anthony van Dyck, Study of the neck of one of the ‘Horses of Monte Cavallo’, c.1616–17. Pen and brown ink, 210×160mm, fol.66v of the ‘Chatsworth Manuscript’, The Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth.

Having catalogued all the Amazon Battles by or associated with Rubens in the first of three projected volumes of the Corpus Rubenianum devoted to Mythological Subjects (Part xi.1: Achilles to the Graces, published in May 2016), I would like to present in this small contribution some additional observations that I believe may shed more light on the context in which this drawing should be considered. It seems to me that the tumbling ‘horseman’ must be a female rider. She falls backwards, trying to cling onto her horse with one hand, while holding aloft a large shield with the other. Her arms and hands are much exaggerated, a distinct feature of early Van Dyck drawings. The figure above, looking down on the unfortunate rider, is also somewhat ambiguous in appearance, but is probably a male warrior. The rearing horse clearly stands out. Much attention is paid to its head and muscular neck, while the horse’s hind legs are rendered in multiple positions, adding turbulence and drama to the scene.

The horse’s imposing appearance closely resembles the central horse in Rubens’s drawing The Battle of the Amazons in the British Museum (my cat. 6), which the artist made in Italy around 1600–03, but will have brought with him to Antwerp in 1608 (fig. 3). Van Dyck must have laid eyes on it in Rubens’s studio. Another point of comparison is a study, in a manuscript in the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth, reproducing the neck of one of the ‘Horses of Monte Cavallo’ in Rome (fig. 4). The ‘Chatsworth Manuscript’ is one of four known transcripts of parts of Rubens’s lost theoretical notebook. The most inspired of the four, it has been attributed to the young Van Dyck, copying directly from the original while under Rubens’s wing. (In 1966 Michael Jaffé published the manuscript as ‘Van Dyck’s Antwerp Sketchbook’.) Opinions on its authorship are, however, divided: there are believers and non-believers. Arnout Balis, author of the forthcoming CRLB volume dealing with Rubens’s lost notebook, is a believer and proposes a date of around 1616–17. Comparison of the Monte Cavallo study with the new drawing reveals a striking similarity in style and execution,

which adds weight to the attribution of the Chatsworth Manuscript. Note especially the cross-hatchings in the horse’s neck, the heavy contours and pointed ears.

The fleeing figure on the verso is another borrowing. He turns out to be lifted from the Battle of Constantine against Maxentius, the famous fresco in the Vatican Sala di Costantino, painted by Raphael and his studio in about 1520–24. This fresco was an important visual repository for Rubens’s earliest Battle of the Amazons, painted around 1597–98, which I have argued is presumably lost but known from several copies; the painting in Potsdam is probably a second version (cat. 5 and 5a). Van Dyck will have studied records of Raphael’s battle scene in or outside Rubens’s studio, be it through a print, study drawings or even perhaps painted copies. It should be recalled that Van Dyck is also associated with a preparatory design (at Christ Church, Oxford) for Lucas Vorsterman’s exceptionally large engraving of 1623 after Rubens’s Battle of the Amazons of c. 1618, now in Munich (cat. 8 and 8a). However, the attribution of the design remains much debated, as a scholars’ meeting organized on the occasion of the ‘Young Van Dyck’ exhibition in the Prado (2012) clearly showed. Several studio hands must have been at work on this print design, resulting in its very uneven quality.

Apparently overlooked in all literature on Van Dyck (and Rubens) is the following information, jotted down in the account books of one of Antwerp’s most prominent dealers in Rubens’s time, Matthijs Musson: ‘Menheer Hillewerve den kanunick is debit 6 jannewary 1662 een schildery de Amasoene van Van Dyck, schoustuck met een fraey vergulde lijst Fl. 300-00’.2 So, a certain canon Hillewerve owed Musson a considerable amount of money for having purchased from him an overmantel painting by Van Dyck, showing the Amazons. Given its description, attribution and selling price, this painting must have been quite large and of high quality. Sadly, I have found no further trace of the work. Was it a copy after Rubens’s painting now in Munich perhaps, or a work derived from it, or an independent composition? We can only guess. However, if it was a copy, would Musson, himself a painter, not have failed to mention this? And who is this Hillewerve? Two candidates present themselves: Hendrik Hillewerve and his brother Frans. Both collected art and were appointed canon: Hendrik at St Jacob’s Church, Frans at Our Lady’s Church. The latter is best known from a legal dispute filed in 1660–61 concerning the authenticity of a series of thirteen paintings of the Apostles and Christ as the Salvator Mundi, claimed to be by Van Dyck. Jan Denucé, who first published (parts of) Musson’s account books, identifies Hillewerve, ‘den geestelijk Heer’, who was a regular customer in the 1650s and

’60s, as Hendrik.3 We cannot be absolutely sure, but it is probably him who bought the Amazons painting from Musson. After the death of his wife in 1657, Hendrik had entered the priesthood (1661) and would soon become an important patron of St Jacob’s Church. He also held the title of Lord of Zemst and Weerde, which included Elewijt, where Rubens had had his country retreat, Het Steen. In 1675 Hendrik was ennobled and shortly later created protonotary apostolic. His youngest sister Cornelia had married the wealthy merchant Jacomo van Eycke, who in 1660 had bought Rubens’s house on the Wapper from the painter’s heirs. After Jacomo’s death, in 1680, Cornelia sold the house to Hendrik, who in 1684 and 1692 commissioned two etchings from Jacob Harrewijn, reproducing the exterior of Rubens’s former house and gardens, then called ‘Maison Hilwerve’.

That a canon, let alone a priest, should buy a large Amazons painting, which obviously implies a display of violence and much female nudity (or near nudity), would today surely raise a few eyebrows, but this was evidently not considered so peculiar in Hillewerve’s art-loving circle. The obvious place to hang such a work is a private picture gallery. According to an eyewitness account by the Brussels friar Franciscus Desiderius de Sevin, Hillewerve had refurbished the interior of Rubens’s house with many exquisite paintings. In 1682 Hendrik donated the property to Cornelia, on the condition that she (and her family) would occupy the spacious house and not sell it during his lifetime. His private quarters were to be kept at his (and his servant’s) disposal at all times. Interestingly, the 1692 print includes (as an inset) a view of Hendrik’s bedroom, showing several large paintings on the walls. If Hendrik indeed bought the Amazons painting from Musson and held onto it thereafter, it is likely that he kept it in his private quarters, hidden from uninvited viewers. But it is perhaps best not to pursue this intriguing and entertaining thought. Nor do I want to go so far as to claim that this new Van Dyck drawing was made preparatory to an Amazons painting, let alone the one acquired by Hillewerve. But, all things considered, Van Dyck surely had this particular subject in mind when he made the pen sketch recently revealed to the public in Paris.

1 Spurenlese. Zeichnungen und Aquarelle aus drei Jahrhunderten, eds. P. Prange and A. Stolzenburg (Hamburger Kunsthalle), Munich 2016, no. 105.

2 Entry in Journal IV, fol. 92v. E. Duverger, ‘Nieuwe gegevens betreffende de kunsthandel van Matthijs Musson en Maria Fourmenois te Antwerpen tussen 1633 en 1681’, Gentse bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis en de oudheidkunde, xxxi, 1968, p. 116.

3 J. Denucé, Na Peter Pauwel Rubens. Documenten uit den kunsthandel te Antwerpen in de XVIIe eeuw van Matthijs Musson (Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Vlaamsche kunst, V), Antwerp/The Hague 1949, pp. lxvii–lxviii.